10.9.07

This is the original 1962 film of Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiment. Milgram was interested in film and made a number of films during his career. He hired actors to play the role of the learner and the psychologist conducting the experiment. He spent a great deal of time designing and building the shock generator. He wrote an elaborate cover story. He even went as far as to show the subjects in the experiment a book on memory to convince them that the experiment was investigating the effect of punishment on learning. Is this art or science? An experiment or psychodrama. A theatre of cruelty with one significant difference: Milgram measured it.

The film is divided into six chapters so you don't have to watch it all at once.